Linked
by AgentKennex
Summary: Two Shepard's, two different stories, one incredible adventure. Follow the battle against the Reapers to take Earth back with Jackson Shepard and Alexandra Shepard-two different Shepard's who met at Alliance military training. Follow the decisions made and the sacrifices chosen to eliminate the Reapers. Co-written with AgentZyiana


**Hey guys, it's AgentKennex here with my very first fanfic! Let me know what you guys think about it, and this story is co-written with AgentZyiana, so check her out she has awesome stories. In case you want to know, I will be writing from Jackson Shepard's point of view and she'll be writing from Alexandra Shepard's point of view. Sadly, this story will not be on her account, but she'll probably have a link to it in her bio. Anyway, enjoy!**

**~xXx~**

**Jackson**

I wish I could have lived on Earth, even if it meant my parents would be dead, like hers. I grew up living on different Alliance spaceship outposts, never the same ship for more than a year. My mother, Hannah Shepard, and my father, Derrick Shepard, were both Alliance soldiers—my father being an Alliance diplomat alongside Councilman Udina and my mother being an Alliance Defense Committee member, serving on the board along with the other members. I enlisted into the Alliance Military when I was eighteen, determined to follow in my parents footsteps. I shipped out onto Earth for training—the first time I had ever visited the world my parents were born on—and I never knew I would bump into her along the way, never knew she would stand out and become the closet friend I've ever had, never knew I would risk my life that I valued for this _one _girl.

Field training was rough, but being 6'3 and having enough muscle from helping other Alliance members on the ships helped out to get me to where I was—first male in the class, meaning that I was the highest scored. She, of course, was first female, which didn't surprise me once I got a good look at her. Her short, brightly dyed red hair occasionally stuck to her face with sweat when she beat the other girls in the five mile runs every morning or heaving heavy objects across the field every afternoons. I only saw the eighteen-year-old in Tactics Training Class—or TTC—, which was the only class that males and females mixed. I caught glimpses of her out on the field when I had to escort something to the instructor or passing by the large windows down the halls. She stood out to me, and I knew it wasn't just because of the crazy hair I would see. I didn't know her background, her history, hell, I didn't even know who she truly was besides a name. All I knew was that I wanted to know those things, but why would such a beautiful girl like her want to talk to some never-before-on-Earth-unless-for-a-brief-time Spacer like me? Clearly, from the outstanding form she had and her ability to outlast all of the other girls in her class, she had certainly lived on the planet longer than I ever had and ever will.

The most intriguing thing about her, though, were her eyes. They were probably colored contacts or pigment injections, but they were these golden-colored orbs that seemed to practically glow. I noticed, one day in TTC while she was presenting her findings on a failed tactic a group of our classmates tried—since she was assigned to it—that there was a ring of rich, royal blue hidden behind the gold. It amplified the color, intensifying the rich color that were her eyes, and it made her true beauty stand out to me even more than it already did. Even though I saw this, I kept telling myself, _you don't know her, you're not the slightest bit in love with her. _I wanted to know her, though, so badly, I wanted to know what she was hiding with those golden eyes and red hair. I wanted to be the one person who knew all of her secrets, and it practically killed me that I didn't.

One day, a year after graduating from Alliance training and receiving our station assignments, I was called in for an important mission. I had no idea why they wanted me, as I was just a field soldier at the time. But, what made me not care that I was a low experienced soldier was that she was called in, walking through the door a few moments after I took my position in front of the briefing table. We were stationed in two separate locations, so I never got to speak with her since training ended. The team we were placed with as support was assigned to a mission on Elysium. We flew out there in a Kodak, her taking a seat next to me when we lifted off. I remember sitting there awkwardly, staring at my helmet in my hands. _Just talk to her, _I thought, but never followed through with it. The other soldiers near us chatted seemingly excitedly, but we were the only two quiet besides our commanding officer. Our legs were pushed next to each other, the armor clinking ever so slightly every time we shook. When I secured my helmet to my head, she did as well, and I went through a pre-deployment checklist of the things I needed to remember, such as pressurizing the air seal, opening the comm link, and checking my assault rifle that was resting in my palms.

When we got to the planet, things were already bad as it was. Batarian slavers were trying to capture the civilians living there, and the Alliance troops already there were gunned down in an instant. I decided then and there I would rather risk my life to lose one than lose another squad that could be saving other lives, so I turned to my expert allies who had been in the field much longer than me to get out of there, that one newly-grad was expendable and that they could be used in a more important fight than the one on Elysium. Even when most of the squad stayed in the Kodak, she didn't, and she was the number one person I was trying to tell to get out of there, to live longer than he would. But when I put up a fight, she pulled her assault rifle off her back and said, "I don't want to die as some field soldier guarding a building. I want to be known as someone who risked herself for others." Which, in other words, meant, "I'm staying no matter what." So, with her standing next to me, she told the others to get back into the Kodak, and together, we almost single-handedly took down the Batarian slavers, earing a few cuts and bruises. Well, she did take a bullet in the upper arm, but the bullet didn't pierce the armor, so it only left a pale scar that isn't visible unless you're staring directly at her arm. There was an ugly bruise there for a few days, and I was the one who patched up her cuts on the way back.

After saving a large squad of senior officers and rescuing many civilians that were being attacked by the slavers, the two of us were soon well known across the entire Alliance Fleet. The moment we arrived back at the New York Alliance Headquarters where my mother served on the Defense Committee, we were ushered into a large ceremony, given medal and recognition from Admiral Hackett himself, and were then both asked to enlist in the Alliance N7 Program—together, which in my opinion was the best part. When we both accepted, that was when I finally got her name from her, and slowly became her friend.

If you thought Alliance basic training was hard, N7 training would have kicked your ass. Luckily, from graduating on top, we were both physically and mentally prepared for the challenge of this harsh training. Once again, we beat every other trainee in our class and came out on top, graduating from N7 and being assigned to something worth doing, which was being aboard Captain Anderson's ship—the SSV Normandy—as executive officers. Soon, though, she and I were into an investigation after hitting the ground with our crew, consisting of Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko and picking up Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, and discovering a Prothean beacon on the planet. She, unfortunately, had to push Kaiden out of its path and was consumed with its knowledge raiding her mind. After that, she and I reported to the Citadel to give the Council the information we recovered. After that, Captain Anderson turned his ship over to us as the Captains, and we headed on our way.

We picked up some new friends during this time. Garrus Vakarian, and old C-Sec worker who was from the Turian race and more than eager to help. Wrex, a krogan who was also ready to help. He led us to our next person, Tali'Zorha nar Rayya—or just known as Tali—who was a Quarian with intel on the person we were investigating. Saren, a Turian Spectre for the Council who was working for the enemy, the Reapers. Of course, she and I stopped him, but we had some interesting memories along the way.

Liara, an Asari Prothean expert adept in biotic powers, was also picked up. She got to meld minds with her, something I was a little jealous of the Asari for. We also had to stop Wrex from going crazy when we found a terrible way to "cure" the Genophage, by managing to make him calm down and realize this wasn't the right way to do it. On another mission, Benezia, Liara's mother, was indoctrinated by the Reapers, so we had no choice but to kill her, and the Rachni Queen, well, we set her free after she promised to take her army and never return. She kept her word, we haven't seen Rachni since.

But then we had to sacrifice one of our squad members—or so we thought. Last minute, she realized that she could save our second squad member, so I sent her after Ashley, who was already prepared to be sacrificed. But, it was too late. When she tried to get back there, she barely made it in time because the bomb that took out Gunnery Chief Williams left leg nearly took her out as well, and that was when Saren slipped through our fingers.

After Ashley's departure from being placed on medical leave, we wouldn't let Saren get away from us again. She drank herself to the point of memory loss from that night, but she came to me, begging that I take her. Our drunken one-night-stand was something she didn't and doesn't remember, but I explained it all to her as she was hung-over and practically puking up last weeks lunch. After that we went to have our final battle with Saren, and there was a Reaper there. Sovereign, it spoke to us, warning us that "the cycle must continue." We blew it up and killed Saren, which then earned Humanity its first seat on the Council, and granted her and me to be the first human Spectres. This was also when we chose Udina to be humanities Councilor.

I got time before the Normandy had to be back up in the sky to be on the Citadel as they rebuilt it from Saren's final stand. Ashley, who is now serving on Earth where there is less fighting so her leg won't weigh her down, came to me during that time, found me looking at the Presidium from a balcony. She asked me why I sent her out to save her instead of going myself, knowing there would be a bomb in the way. I realized then why, I wanted her out of danger, and I thought sending her after Ashley would keep her safer than on the line with me. I didn't realize at the time I was putting her in more danger than I thought, more danger than I was in. In my mind, I didn't see why I cared so much about her, because if she got hurt, it would be under our command, but I guess I would feel the weight of it. I couldn't allow the burden of knowing she would be severely injured on my shoulders. There's a scar on her lower back is there because of a decision I made, because a piece of flying shrapnel was zipping towards her. If that shrapnel had hit three inches to the right and an inch higher than it did, she would have been paralyzed for life. When I saw her on the Citadel after learning this, I apologized more than fifteen times to my best friend in the world, and she kissed me to shut me up. We never talked about the kiss, but I could tell when it crossed her mind occasionally. She has a good poker face, but when it came to kissing me a brief time, there was this small twinkle in her eyes as she glanced at my lips ever so slightly.

This was flirting and I knew it, but there's another part to our story before we get to present tense. And in this part, two years ago, I thought I lost her forever.

**~xXx~**

**Alex**

Growing up in an orphanage in the busy city of New York City was hard enough as you'd imagine, but even more difficult if you were a socially awkward teenager with no parents and no idea what you're planning on doing in life.

From what they told me, a ten-month-old kid was dropped off with a note about my parents being killed in the Alliance and that I was the loner of the bunch. I stayed there until I was eighteen, because let's face it, who wanted a kid who's parents were both killed in battle. Some of the people in New York thought it was bad luck, so to get away from the place, I enlisted into the Alliance Military.

I met him in TTC and pretty much fell in love in an instant. He already told you about how he felt, and I pretty much felt the same way, meeting a tall boy with short dirty-blond hair and grey eyes and a bright smile. My issue was that he would never fall in love with an Orphan as he was a Spacer, but who am I kidding, he did.

After we defeated Saren, we were sent on Space patrol for taking out Geth units, we received a signal that wasn't the Geth. No, it was the Collectors, a race we hadn't seen in such a long time. The beam it shot at us decimated our ship, and the two of us evacuated the crew, all but one, and that was our pilot, Joker. He and I made him evacuate, but we lost our lives in the process, suffocating to death as we flew in space heading towards a planet. But the pro-human group Cerberus revived us, brought us back from the dead after two years, and invested trillions of dollars into something they called the Lazarus Project. When we finally woke up, the leader of this—to us—terrorist organization named the Illusive Man briefed us about our enemy and what we had to do to stop it. He also had a whole list of people to join our team, even though we wanted Kaiden and Liara and Wrex. But we agreed, hell, he even gave us the SR-2 Normandy.

Our list included some old friends and new ones, each of them different. Let's start with the friends we know, Garrus and Tali, who were eager to help defeat the Collectors alongside us, just like with Saren. But then we had new friends, such as human Cerberus Agents Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor. Then we had Jack, a Cerberus test subject with the best biotic powers I've ever seen—even mine can't match hers. Then we had Thane, a drell assassin who was terminally ill but not yet near death. Samara, an incredible Asari who was excellent in the art of killing. Grunt, a tank bread krogan who was loyal and designed to be perfect. Legion, a Geth unit that became loyal to the rest of us after being awoken. Mordin, an intelligent Salarian scientist. Finally, Kasumi, a master thief and clever with killing. It was an odd mix, and there were conflicts along the way once we earned their loyalty. Of course, being the good-hearts him and I were, we solved the conflicts, keeping everybody happy. We were prepared and we were ready.

That's when the Collectors attacked the Normandy. They stole our crew, taking them back to their base. When we got back, we decided to go and rescue the crew, because we were as ready as we could be. We saved the crew and the whole team survived the suicide mission, but we blew up the Collector base even when the Illusive Man wanted us to preserve it. We didn't like that guy anyway.

But just before we left to rescue the crew, I returned to his cabin for the second time, remembering every detail from the last even though he seemed to think I didn't know what happened. I admitted to him I was aware of it, and that tonight, I didn't want it to be a one-night-stand, I wanted it to be so much more. He agreed, and we fell into each other that night. Once again, it was the best night of my life.

But now, we face a bigger threat, the Reapers are coming, but both Jackson and I were relieved of duty and placed in the same room in the Alliance New York Headquarters, where we received our medals and were asked to join N7, where it all pretty much began. Being locked up has given us time to love each other even more than we did when we were first relieved, but the weight of knowing the Reapers would soon be here was weighing on our shoulders.

As I sat next to him, a knock was on the door, and Lieutenant James Vega entered the door. "Commanders," he said, saluting us both.

Jackson looked up, and half smiled at Vega. "You're not supposed to call us that anymore, Vega," he said, looking down at me with a smile.

"You're not supposed to salute us, either," I said to him, also half smiling.

"I know, I know, old habit," the Lieutenant said, holding his hands up in an apology. "But I'm here to escort you two someplace. The Defense Committee needs to speak with you both, now."

**So there you guys have it, the first chapter/prologue. We hope you enjoyed it, and we'll be back soon—eventually—to entertain you guys once again. It will probably be in a week or so, because we're going to Comic Con these next upcoming days, but don't worry. We'll be back. ~AgentKennex and AgentZyiana**


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